The numbers game: it's on for young and old

March 21 2003

Surveys of voters show a volatile mood among
age groups and between genders but, overall,
the numbers point to a repeat of 1999, writes Robert Wainwright.

The State Government is headed for a comfortable win and may even maintain its commanding majority in the Parliament after tomorrow, according to the Herald-ACNielsen polls conducted throughout the campaign.

But the message behind the numbers taken in the first three weeks of the campaign show a far more uncertain and volatile picture, affected by a series of influences such as the distraction of impending war in Iraq, the lopsided advertising budget of the two parties and the rise of the Greens.

The latest poll, published last Saturday, showed the Coalition stuck on the same 54-46 two-party preferred position as the last, disastrous, election result in 1999. But at least it was an improved result on the poll taken the week before, when the 58-42 position had signalled a potential rout.

The most glaring trend between the first poll taken on February 27 and the third poll taken on March 13 was the voting intentions of the young and old. Contrary to expectations about Opposition Leader John Brogden's appeal as a 33-year-old, it was the older voters - those aged over 55 - who swarmed to him. In two-party preferred terms, the numbers firmed in favour of Brogden from 50-50 on February 27 to 53-47 on March 13.

The opposite was true of young voters, aged between 18 and 24, who tracked from 57-43 in favour of Premier Bob Carr to a massive 72-28 in Carr's favour by March 13.

While Carr's approval ratings have remained steady, about 69 per cent, Brogden's have bobbed up and down, from a low of 35 per cent on March 7 to a record high on March 13 of 40 per cent. Significantly, as his recognition improved, so did his approval rating.

The real problem for Brogden has been the struggle to boost the Coalition's primary vote. The first poll result of 39 per cent showed a huge improvement on the 1999 election result, which recorded just 33.7 per cent. But since then it has slipped back to 35 per cent.

The result must worry Coalition strategists, who would have expected a surge as One Nation voters from 1999 came back to the conservative fold.

The big winners from each poll have been the Greens, whose popularity hit an 11 per cent high on March 13, despite the controversy over the party's drugs policy. The rise, as opposed to the decimation of the One Nation vote (from 7.5 to 1 per cent), indicated the vastly different political canvas across NSW compared with 1999.

The other interesting aspect of the campaign is the smaller, but significant, rise in the vote for independents. Though the overall rise over the three weeks was minimal, from 5 to 6 per cent, it was the boost in country seats, 7 to 10 per cent, which might indicate a shift for the election result, almost entirely for conservative seats.

The gender bias has been flat-lining during the campaign, except in the primary vote among men, where the Coalition primary vote has plunged from 39 per cent in the first week to 33 per cent on March 13. It probably reflects the youth vote.